Contact
by Sydney47-2
Summary: Season 1, Jack reveals the truth about Sydney's mom, leading to S/V's first hug. Hope you enjoy! Please review! :-


Contact

The words came out of her father's mouth and her world spun out of control. Sydney's heart pounded in her head and she could hardly see straight as waves of confusion bombarded her senses. She couldn't even look at the people her father gathered there to tell her the truth behind those codes in her mother's books. But she could feel their stares boring through her so sharply that she could hardly stand it. The truth about her mother was one that she didn't want to believe.

Sydney had fought the emotions about her splintered family all her life, so much so that she had practically become jaded to them. But nothing could have prepared her for this. A lifetime of lies hit her all at once leaving her feeling sick. Her ideas of reality shattered and were replaced by a dull ache that swelled up out of a dark emptiness that threatened to consume her.

Suddenly a surge of energy flowed through her stemming from anger that was hard to contain. A feeling of impending suffocation propelled her out of her seat, past the sets of penetrating eyes, through the door so quickly that she was hit with dizziness that stopped her in my tracks. But she had to get away. She rushed down the hallway until her father caught up to her. 'How can he possibly expect me to be rational about this,' she thought. She'd call herself crazy if she were rational at a time like this.

_Lies, lies, lies_, they all started closing in on Sydney leaving her breathless. Her eyes darted around wildly and she half believed everyone around her knew every dark secret her battered heart contained. Lowering her eyes in the only small defense she could conjure up at that time, she practically flew out of the office, having no idea what to do next.

Somehow, she and her car found themselves at the cemetery where her father had a small headstone erected and an even smaller plot set aside for the body of her mother that was never found. The loose ends surrounding the bits of stories about her mother that Sydney thought would never come together had now wound themselves into a menacing knot that blocked her path in every direction. She didn't even know where to begin. She stared at the engraved letters that spelled her mother's faux name and they stared back, cold as the stone that enclosed them. All words had lost meaning.

"Syd," a voice reverberated through her jumbled mind and she wondered if she truly were going crazy. It took her a few moments to realize that the single, quiet word came from behind her, that she knew who uttered it even before turning around.

"Vaughn," Sydney paused as she breathed an inward sigh of relief, "what are you doing here?"

"I came to let you know that I'm here … if you want to talk." Sydney kept her back turned to him, and there was an awkward silence for a moment. Finally, she said a barely audible, "Thank you," which sounded like the two words took all of her strength to utter. Vaughn saw her shiver slightly, but he couldn't be sure if it was because of the wind or something else just as intangible. In any case, he couldn't stand it any longer.

"Syd, I'm here to help." She still did not turn around, so he pleaded, "Please just look at me."

"I can't," she whispered, barely louder than the breeze. Then stronger, with frustration, "I can't deal with this right now." She felt a wall crumbling inside of her, remaining feeble defenses collapsing, but she was determined to not lose the battle here. Still, a few tears fell that she could not prevent from escaping. She wiped them away bitterly.

Protocol the last thing on his mind, Vaughn stepped towards her and put his hand lightly on her shoulder. "You don't have to deal with this right now," he said. "And you don't have to deal with it alone either."

Vaughn's touch reignited a flame of uncontrollable emotion in Sydney that burst forth as if being shot out of a rocket. She brushed his hand away abruptly and turned to face him, rage sizzling in her eyes.

"How do you expect to help me in this?" she spat. "By holding my hand while you watch me cry?" she continued sarcastically. "That will _really_ help!" She gave in to her rage and kicked the stone that held the now meaningless name. Then she turned back to Vaughn and shouted, "I have a thousand questions that need answers, and my mother—or whatever she was—is the only one who can give them to me, but she's _gone_!"

Vaughn grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. "Sydney! I know it's not fair, but you can't lose control right now. You have to keep your head in this game. This sick, convoluted, and downright frustrating game—or you're dead. Simple as that." Then, more gently, "What I'm offering you is another head. We can find a way through this together, but only if you'll let me help." His eyes burned into hers, so much so that she had to look down, but she didn't try to break away.

"I have a stake in this too," he said quietly, dropping his hands. "I thought it would be best to be allies in this."

Angry at herself now, Sydney nodded. "I need to get out of here," she breathed, wiping her forehead. "I'll see you."

"Syd … Syd, wait!" Vaughn called, but she kept walking.

Mentally exhausted, Sydney drove blindly back to her house. Thoughts of her so-called mother continued to rattle through her mind. She tried to push them away, but the thoughts kept coming. Once at home, she was driven to her box of memories—memories that were actually lies. She stared at the picture of a mother and daughter, a picture just as empty and cold as Laura Bristow's grave. In a sudden burst of a search for vengeance, Sydney crumpled the photo of a long lost time and threw it savagely into the fire. But watching that picture burn, that picture which had once meant so much to her, was not as relieving as she thought it would be. In fact, it left her just as hollow inside. She had half a mind to throw the whole box into the flames, but something stopped her. Whether it was a stubborn clinging to an idyllic past, or some small notion that there were still clues to be had in the box of deception, she carefully replaced the items and put the box away.

Suddenly energized by fiery rage, she decided to go for a run. Around the track she went, trying to burn off as much blinding anger as she could. Images of her childhood flew by, leaving her to wonder whether any of it was real. Since her father had revealed the truth about SD-6, Sydney had been searching for vindication. But now with this new information about her past, the truth was starting to hurt.

'When will I ever have more answers than questions?' she thought as she turned into her fourth lap. 'The farther I go, the more twisted the world becomes. I NEED to get out of this game. I need to get OUT!' Her last thought winded her like a blow to the stomach, and she came to a sudden halt on the track. She paused for breath as the idea sunk in. 'That's it,' she thought resolutely. 'I have to get out.'

She strode to the car confidently. 'I'll need to tell Vaughn,' she thought as she sat down, but his name in her mind made her sink sorrowfully into her seat. 'Vaughn,' she thought again, and then his words from earlier that day resonated in her mind.

"_I have a stake in this too,"_ he had said. 'A big stake,' Sydney thought. 'To finally know who was behind his father's death, and to find out that it was my mother … This is all so unreal.' She closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead, suddenly feeling dizzy. Then she pulled out her phone and dialed quickly.

"We need to meet."

The drive to the warehouse seemed altogether too long and too short at the same time. Sydney really needed to talk to Vaughn, not just for her own sake, but for his also, she felt. But how to word what she was feeling? She was still all a jumble of emotions that the fateful meeting earlier that day had brought on. But now the emotions were directed to Vaughn's part in all this.

"My mother killed his father …" The words ran steadily through Sydney's mind like the hum of the motor of her car. She wondered how any part of this situation could possibly be real. In fact, she was disappointed to realize she was not delirious after stepping out of the meeting.

Sydney's heart pounded as she parked her car next to Vaughn's. Closing her eyes, she sat quietly for a moment, breathing slowly.

'How do I apologize for something of this magnitude?' she wondered. '"I'm sorry" isn't enough for what my mother did.'

And as she looked straight into Vaughn's eyes a few minutes later, and delivered those words, Sydney felt as lost as she ever had. The feeble brave front she had been trying to keep up collapsed just as much as she sank into Vaughn's arms.

He held her without words, without fears. He knew Sydney's empathy could do her more harm than good, and right now it was taking her through an array of difficult emotions, ones that no words could touch. Only Vaughn's physical presence was giving Sydney any sense of relief. He wasn't sure if she could feel it, but holding her in his arms was making him feel better too.

The shadows of the warehouse could have swallowed up the embraced couple. Neither Sydney nor Vaughn counted time as a factor, which seemed to stretch on and still not be enough to satiate the clawing pain each one felt. But now that this new ground of closeness had been broken, a new strength arose, one borne of the contact of wills, of minds, of bodies so close that heartbeats could be felt. Sydney and Vaughn each felt like they were in the safe haven of comforting arms after being awakened from a bad dream.

As much as they wanted to remain as they were—close, comforted—they had to break away. Sydney, who was feeling awkward with her sudden emotional breakdown and with how good Vaughn's hug made her feel, glanced down and said, "Thank you, Vaughn. I'm sorry that I—"

"You never have to be sorry for what you feel about your mother," he broke in with a determined look. "You are not responsible for her."

"I know, it's just—"

"Just nothing, Sydney. She killed my father. And you were right, she is gone. Gone for good."

Sydney turned away and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Syd, but I don't want to see you hurting over a figure of the past, one that could haunt you if you let it. Don't let it, Syd."

Vaughn put a hand on her shoulder and she turned around with lowered eyes. When she glanced up, Vaughn saw tears shine back. He took her in his arms again, and they both sunk into another, more relaxed embrace. Getting over the information about Sydney's mother would be like fighting demons out of Hell, but Sydney felt a safety in Vaughn's arms that she hadn't known from another person since she was a child. A safety of earned trust and true confidence. One so fortified, that Sydney felt comfortable enough in this moment to pull back from Vaughn and tell him of her intention of leaving SD-6.

Sydney had had enough of the twists and turns of world of espionage, and she just wanted some sense of normalcy, some sense of reality. She tried to express this to Vaughn, showing him that her concept of normalcy did not involve meeting in dark warehouses, but rather something along the lines of attending a hockey game together. 'Bringing up the Kings pen was a nice touch,' Vaughn even thought. But…

"Syd, you can't do this."

"I'll give you a call, Vaughn. I think I'll learn to like hockey pretty quickly," she said, stubborn as ever, turning to leave.

She kept walking even as Vaughn called her to come back and think some more about her decision, but her mind was set. She looked forward to the goodbye handshake from Sloane the following morning. She looked forward to seeing Vaughn in a Kings shirt at the hockey game this weekend.

She looked forward to never looking back.


End file.
